Poroshenko warns of danger for Zelensky from 'ill-considered meeting' with Putin

2 min read

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has cautioned President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky's team against meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin without prior consultations with Kyiv's international partners.

"If anyone makes any decision in favor of Ukraine, we will certainly support if. If anyone needs advice, we will give it. But the risks that are facing the world and the country today are off the scale. If you go to a meeting with Putin, no one from the world coalition that we have carefully created for five years will ever come to you again. You will ruin it and will leave Ukraine on its own with the aggressor. And then the only thing you can do is to go down on your knees and admit surrender. And this is something that we surely can't allow to happen," Poroshenko said at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv on Monday.

Poroshenko also confirmed that he stands ready to help his successor with advice and support his decisions adopted in Ukraine's favor.

"We will timely give him a clue as to how to avoid going down on his knees, because we know how to do it - not to go down on our knees. We will also timely prompt him how to keep his allies and partners. And we will timely prompt him how not to sell himself for '30 pieces of silver' of gas," Poroshenko said.